Rick Kinnaird

Two Events made me start writing these screeds: one was the loss of Hillary Clinton and the other was an article published on Halloween 2016 in Slate. The article was entitled “Was a Trump Server Communicating with Russia?”

You don’t have to be any kind of techie genius to conclude that there was a server communicating with a server in Russia. It passes “the reasonable person” test. That is to say “A reasonable person would conclude …”

The Handoff

In fact, there is no other explanation. All others have been eliminated as implausible. As implausible as, “Yeah, well, it could have been aliens from Mars or Pluto, but that’s highly unlikely.”

This article led me to believe that Trump (and by that I mean someone and mostly likely several people including Trump himself) were communicating with Russians.

Now there are those who will say, “there is no proof.” There is proof. That it was faked is not likely to impossible. That it was a conspiracy to make it appear that way is also near impossible. Besides, why would a conspiracy be doing something to make it look like something nefarious in such a way that they would not be caught? That it was really scanning of old archival data that sent out data pings. Really? Well then two organizations had the exact same type of archival data scan problems at the exact same time, and were communicating with the Trump server: one was the Russian server and the other was a server owned and operated by a Betsy DeVos company, Spectrum Health.

Additionally, the kind of traffic and the timestamps eliminate it as an automatic email blast type program. It had the footprint of human communication. It happened in bursts of pings, then quieted down, then flared up again. This was likened to a criminal enterprise that needed some top level direction and didn’t want to get caught.

A new article in The New Yorker picks up the trail – two years later. There are a few other things that point to human interaction and collusion between Trump, the Russians, and The Betsy DeVos company. Also, there is some odd behavior by The New York Times (the failing New York Times!) that Mr. Trump should thank them for, because had it not been for that, and the FBI in yet another case of interference in the election, it is unlikely that Trump would have won the narrow victory that he did.

Where to begin?

Let’s start with the evidence of human interaction. The Russian bank, Alfa-Bank, is tied tightly to Putin. The two running it are not in Putin’s inner circle, but have steered their enterprise in such a way that they have not been thrown in jail and had their assets seized like other oligarchs. This says something about their ability to function within Russia, because it is conceded that no enterprise in Russia functions without Putin’s blessing.

“Banks” in Russia aren’t like banks anywhere else. They are extensions of the government and the oligarchs that run the country. There purpose is to help the oligarchs get ill gotten gains out of the country and into the west where their money is safer. One such avenue is via The Bank of Cyprus where Wilbur Ross was on the board of directors until it became known and he gave up the title. But not before transferring the stock to others in his family so he could claim he didn’t own any of it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Don McGahn, White House Counsel, came from a white shoe DC law firm that has as a client Alfa Bank. There are half a dozen lawyers that McGahn brought over from that firm to work in the White House, and another half dozen are sprinkled throughout the government. Additionally, the lawyer in charge of the criminal division of the FBI was the lawyer that defended Alfa Bank when these suspicions were originally raised.

There’s more. The Dutch lawyer who served time for lying to the FBI in relation to the Russia collusion probe that Mueller is conducting is married to the daughter of one of the founders of Alfa Bank.

By the way the rise of Alfa Bank is a rags to riches story that would make Donald seem handed everything, which he was, and managed to screw it up. The founder started out with a window washing service, bought a bakery, and now is the second richest man in Russia. (I skipped a few intermediate steps.)

Does any of this prove that Trump et al colluded? No.

But I’ve only laid out some of the background.

The reporter for the NYT approached Alfa Bank’s lawyers with their evidence; two days later the Trump server stopped working. The only way that could happen was via communication, human communication.

The reporter also was approached by the FBI and they said they were already looking into the connection between Russians and Trump and asked the paper not to publish as it could upset their investigation. The reporter felt he had a duty to report this to the public. His boss disagreed.Harry Reid implored the FBI to say what they knew – before the 2016 election. Everyone kept silent and Trump got elected. Well, that’s not exactly true, The New York Times did run an article about it, but the headline suggested that Trump had been investigated and there was no evidence of collusion. You would have had to read the article carefully to see that the real story was there was some questionable stuff.

Trump has the FBI, Jim Comey, and The New York Times to thank for his being elected.

The New Yorker article gives some more details about what might have been going on with those servers. Three organizations were involved: Alfa-Bank, The Trump Organization, and Spectrum Health, which is the DeVos company. The activity is human communication. It is not machine. It is not spam, or some old archive being rescanned and sending out an errant email. It is not email because that would have left more digital timestamps. It appears to be the use of existing software from a previously used system.

The reporter on the New Yorker story called it “foldering.” The idea being that you could write an email for someone, save it in a draft folder and never send it. Then another person who knew the login id and password could go into the same system and look at the draft email and leave another draft email as a response. This would leave fewer timestamps and fingerprints. This is exactly what Paul Manafort got put in jail for. He was using this method to communicate with witnesses in his upcoming trial. He ended up incarcerated because of it.

The other possibility is some kind of instant messaging system built within existing software. The software that Trump organization used when they were using the server for email marketing blasts had such a feature.

Regardless of what system they were actually using to communicate Alfa Bank, the Trump organization, and the DeVos’ Spectrum Health were talking to each other.

Oh yes, there was collusion. There is no doubt about that.

Was it illegal?

This brings us back to “the reasonable person test.”

If it wasn’t illegal why did they go to such lengths to hide it? To then cover it up? And then to make excuses that don’t stand up? Why did they and their lawyers lie?

The conclusion is obvious. It was illegal and they knew it. These are crimes. They should all be in jail.

Another day another bunch of evidence that the president of the United States, his family members, other members of his team and the Republicans colluded with the Russian and obstructed justice. I know. You’re shocked and surprised. Make America Great Again by Colluding with the Enemy and Taking Money from Foreign Powers. MAGACETMFP!

There is apparently more evidence forthcoming from new accusers of Brett Kavanaugh, but that’s getting ahead of things a bit – maybe. Currently, we can witness the Republican victory lap about shoving a lying drunk and abuser of women onto the Supreme Court. Hey, wait, I’m being unfair. He’s a nice guy. He’s a nice guy like Hobby Lobby has nice people working there. So what if they can’t get certain health benefits? So what if the head of the firm has been on the forefront of many a lawsuit to discriminate against women? So what if he backs a museum that pushes fantasies as fact?

In the wake of the Kavanaugh confirmation there has been commentary about the Republican party, by recovering Republicans. The party they used to support and no longer can. The comments in that regard are sad and disturbing, but reflect a sense of where that party is now. These people say they left the Republican party because it was bereft of ideas; that it was all negative thoughts and attacks set on destroying. That the party had no ideas, no respect for facts, and that they had abandoned the principles and ideas that had originally drawn them to the party. Not only that but there is a meanness, and a lack of civility and empathy that they could not abide.

Oh well. So yesterday we learned that Devin Nunes, unofficial lapdog of the White House, is releasing some of the testimony that his short lived Russia investigation held. You remember they didn’t find any collusion so they shut down the investigation. They also didn’t look for any collusion and we now know that if there was any lead or whiff of collusion Nunes made sure not to follow up on it and went out of his way to block those efforts.

To semi-quote Jennifer Aniston’s restaurant boss in the movie Office Space where he is talking to her about how much bling she is wearing on her suspenders, “I’m not saying you were colluding with the Russians. I’m just saying you’re doing the minimum.” Hell, Devin you ain’t even doing the minimum.

Nunes isn’t releasing the testimony of Comey, and two intel guys, which probably makes sense in that their stuff could be damaging to national security, but he isn’t releasing the testimony of two Congress people either. “As a professional courtesy,” he claims. One is Debbie Wasserman Shultz whosays she’s fine with releasing her testimony. The other is Dana Rohrabacher. A Republican who has been called Putin’s favorite Congressman and whom Republican whip Kevin McCarthy said the Congressman was being paid by the Russians. He was joking, but it does illustrate how deeply Mr. Rohrabacher appears to be in league with the Russians.

If we got to see Rohrabacher’s testimony we would apparently learn that when he went on trips he just happened to run into highly placed Russians. Pure coincidence! No Collusion! Really? What are the odds? Like what are the odds the Eric Prince went to the Seychelles for some business reason yet to be stated and ran into a Russian at a bar and they just happened to discuss how the Russians could help Trump get elected and how the Trump folks could set up a back channel to Russia? Now, of course, Trump doesn’t need much of a back channel he just meets with Putin with no other American in the room for hours at a time. It probably takes Putin that long to explain to Donald what he wants him to do next.

Ho hum, then there’s Rick Gates. He’s back in the news. Turns out the Trump election team is an equal opportunity colluder. Not only were they trying to work with the Russians; they were working with the Israelis. It was an Israeli company filled with ex-MOSAD agents that offered their services tothe Trump election team. Nothing much, just setting up false accounts to influence Republican delegates to vote for Trump. Not only would they set up phony accounts and personas. They’d have people call the delegates. They realized it probably wouldn’t look good if it was Israelis making the calls so they proposed hiring U.S. citizens to do the dirty work. Gates let three RFPs for such services.

Oh yeah then there’s a little tidbit that I have to say it’s amazing how Trump can make it all about himself. He’s making the claim that his mocking Dr. Ford turned the nomination for Kavanaugh around and “he sailed through” after that. Republicans are now jumping up and down claiming that the Democrats treated Kavanaugh so unfairly. They were so mean! They made Brett cry. Aw, why would they do that? Let’s see. Kavanaugh lied under oath – repeatedly. He insulted Senators. He said he would exact retribution when he got confirmed. He claimed there was a partisan conspiracy out to get him and offered nothing to back up such a claim. Yet, the Republicans claim the Dems were unfair. Kavanaugh and the Republicans ought to know; they’ve done the heavy lifting when it comes to unfair, demeaning, baseless accusation and investigation.

Let’s not forget that it was Kavanaugh while on the Starr Whitewater investigation that wanted the most salacious details of the Clinton/Lewinsky affair, that had nothing to do with a bust land deal fourteen years before. It was Orrin Hatch that asked for the details on that business yet now has the temerity to say the Dems acted unfairly toward weepy BK.

I hope that after the election a proper investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh will be carried out, if for no other reason then to clear the name of the FBI from being a tool of the Republicans in their whitewash of Kavanaugh’s behavior. I also hope that we’ll be able to see the thousands of pages of documents that Chuck Grassely forbade the Senators from seeing about Kavanaugh’s time in the White House when he said he had nothing to do with the White House torture campaign under W, but those in the room at the time said he had plenty to do with it. I want it just to clear his name mind you; I mean I’m sure Ted Cruz and Orrin Hatch wouldn’t want such terrible allegations hanging over Kavanaugh’s head for the next forty years that he’ll sit on the bench.

I got to wonder what Roberts is thinking. How is he going to handle this guy? Kavanaugh has no courtroom experience as a lawyer. Will Ginsberg and Kagan have to explain to him how judicial proceedings work? Or will that fall to Alito?

Oh yes, the district court where Kavanaugh sat for the last twelve years, the guy in charge there is forwarding the complaints, of which there were many about Kavanaugh, to Justice Roberts. I’d like to know why none of that came out in Kavanaugh’s hearing!

There is so much that is wrong in our country now. I no longer have the sense that “We are all in this together.” How can we be? We can’t agree on the basic facts. There is a culture of hate and belittlement, of falsehood and blame. It is tearing us apart.

The Republicans rammed through their Supreme Court nominee, and there wasn’t really a vote changed by the proceedings. So much for women being heard.

Bill Maher made a point in his last show that Mike Enzie from Wyoming represents 237,000 people while Kamila Harris of California represents 20,000,000. He’s made this point before in a different way by stating that in a few years the majority of the U.S. population will live in 16 states. They will be represented by 32 Senators while the rest of the country, where the minority of the population lives will have 68 Senators.

I did a little fun with numbers and pulled the populations of every state plus D.C. and rank ordered them. If we awarded states senators based on percentage of the population California would get 12 and twelve states would get none. If we throw in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands then Puerto Rico would get a Senator and Florida would lose one going down from seven to six.

In the latter scenario (with Puerto Rico in the mix) the bar to achieve !% of the population and hence one Senator would be 1.7 million. Idaho getting one Senator at 1,753,860 and Hawaii losing out at 1,426,393.
So what about the states that didn’t get a Senator? Would they be willing to team up with another state to reach the one percent?
Here’s the rank order:

Would Hawaii team up with the US Virgin Islands? Not quite enough, maybe they could make a deal with D.C.?
How about Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont?
What about Rhode Island and Delaware?
How about Montana, North & South Dakota, and Wyoming?
Oh gee, Alaska has no one. Maybe they should throw their lot with Hawaii and the Virgins? Then where does DC go? With them or with Rhode Island and Delaware?

Regardless of how you cut it California, Texas, Florida, New York are getting screwed. You could go down the list further until you hit 2%, but – I know – this is what the House of Representatives is for. However, you can’t escape the fact that the least populous states hold an unfair and unequal sway over our political system.

Currently, the top six states hold 41% of the population, the top 9 have 50%, the top 16 have 67.5%.

Only five or six of those states are Republican. What if the six, nine, or sixteen said, “Sorry, not going to play any more.”? Wyoming the state that sucks the most money out of the Federal government per capita would not get those subsidies. What would happen? You can go through the list. They would shrivel up more than they have.

At some point this problem will be addressed. How or when and in what form I don’t know, but the folks in California will only take so much from the Dick Cheney’s and the Mike Enzie’s of the world.

There are times when you get down to it. Where there is nothing left to say. Where you are looking someone in the eye with that look of “Well?” (“What ya gonna do?”)

When Chuck Grassley held a town hall in his home state of Iowa and that farmer asked him about Obamacare inquired, “Why not fix it?” Grassley had nothing to say. He looked like an old befuddled man. But to hear him at the Senate Judiciary hearing say there was no evidence and that they did everything to accommodate Dr. Ford and the Democrats is one lie on top of another. Maybe, he actually believes what he is saying. I think a lot of these old white men (and younger white men, and women) actually talk themselves into believing the lines of BS they tell themselves over and over again. But at some point they have to face the truth. Maybe, it doesn’t happen publicly. Maybe, it’s a wife, or daughter, or person they don’t know but the question is, “How could you?”

How could you hear Dr. Ford and not conclude she was telling the truth? Don’t you love the “She didn’t know this or that” argument? There was a video of Trump saying “She doesn’t remember” to multiple assertions by him and then they cut in her testimony where she does remember each and every one.

Then there’s Grassley’s comment that they had offered Ford to interview her in California. Who they? Oh right the partisan Republican staff. The same ones who boasted publicly that they would see Kavanaugh confirmed. The ones not trained in investigative techniques.

Then there’s the Republican withholding of documents about Kavanaugh’s time in the White House. There’s the investigation that the FBI did as a follow up where they didn’t interview any of the corroborating witnesses or the witnesses to Kavanaugh’s drunken lifestyle.

Then there’s Kavanaugh’s judicial record as a lawyer. He’s never tried a case in court. He’s written about his extreme views on women’s rights and on cases of settled law that he wants to overturn.

There’s his record as the hitman for the Starr investigation. Where he wanted – demanded – that Lewinsky answer questions about the most salacious details of her interaction with Bill Clinton.

Kavanaugh got off easy. He said it never happened.

There was a comedy routine on Trevor Noah that a guy argued that the sober Kavanaugh probably doesn’t know what the drunk Kavanaugh did. That could be true. The conclusion? Get him drunk and see what he remembers then.

The mask would be off as it was partially in his hearing.

Those fifty Senators who voted for him will have to live with that decision for the rest of their lives, which given many of their ages won’t be that long, but we will still be stuck with that pompous unqualified small deceitful man on the court as he sanctimoniously chips away at our rights and hands them to the rich and powerful.

We are watching the slow motion decay of our democracy.

We are watching our country joining the ranks of so many countries where the rich, the powerful use their positions to guarantee that they will stay in charge.

I only hope that every Senator and everyone who is celebrating the elevation of the most unqualified man in the history of the Supreme Court to Associate Justice will have their Come-to-Jesus moment where they will have to confront the awful truth of what they have wrought.

There are certain things that I remember happening and I remember where I was when I heard about them.
I remember where I was when I heard Kennedy was shot.
I remember where I was when the news reported that there had been a break-in at the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate Hotel.
I remember what was playing on the radio when I first kissed a girl.
I think I’ll remember where I was when I heard Susan Collins give her speech in defense of her vote for Brett Kavanaugh.

At first, I thought it was Amy Klobuchar that was speaking. It seemed well reasoned, at first. Then it became clear it was not Klobuchar as Collins began to wander into how Kavanaugh had assured her that Roe v Wade was settled law and how he would not overturn it. She then went on to talk about the FBI supplemental background investigation and how there was no corroborating evidence to any of the claims made by the women.
I have said that Senator Collins is one of the dumbest Senators there is. I take that back. There are ones who are much dumber. I have also said she is one of the most naive. I stand by that. And that may not be the best word to describe her. She allows herself to be hoodwinked and lied to again and again and she believes those who do it to her over and over again.
When she was saying there was no evidence in the FBI supplemental report to corroborate the stories of sexual assault I’ll have to take her word and the word of others because we haven’t been shown the report. It’s worth noting that in the case of Hillary Clinton’s emails the FBI released those reports. Something they rarely, if ever before that time, have done.
I wanted to scream at the radio, “OF COURSE THERE WAS NO CORROBORATING EVIDENCE IN THE FBI REPORT. IF YOU DON’T ASK THE PEOPLE WHO CAN CORROBORATE THERE WON’T BE ANY CORROBORATING EVIDENCE.” I hold that truth to be self-evident.

There are TWENTY people who said they have corroborating evidence of Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual assault behavior. There are ANOTHER TWENTY who say they have evidence of Kavanaugh’s drinking to excess, blacking out, becoming nasty and belligerent when drunk, and being at parties where gang rapes occurred. Yet, NONE OF THESE WITNESSES WERE INTERVIEWED.

Collins was the clean up hitter for the Republicans who wanted to jam through Kavanaugh’s appointment. She hit every point they wanted to make. The optics were great too. They had two women sitting behind her when she spoke on the Senate floor. Hey, why not Hatch and Cronin? Or Grassley?

It appears we will now put on the Supreme Court a man with no judicial experience and by that I mean a lawyer who has never tried a case in court, any court. He was a law clerk. He was the hit man in the Starr investigation. That’s where he met Rod Rosenstein, who was for his nomination.

Kavanaugh was very clear in his Senate Judicial Committee opening statement that he will take revenge on his accusers. He is well known to hate the Clintons. He spoke of a hit job by the left and the Clintons. He swore to take revenge. He will now be on the Supreme Court.

The first case they have to hear involves the idea that a president can not pardon someone who is being charged by a state for a crime. That is now up for review. Imagine what will happen if that is overturned? I predict within 48 hours Trump will be pardoning himself, his kids, and everyone else he can think of.

If Kavanaugh is approved we will now have seen the corruption of the Congress, the presidency, and now – the judiciary.

There was a piece on last night talking about how an Illinois politician who had never lost an election, was at the time of the Thomas nomination a Democratic Senator, who promised George Bush that he would vote for Thomas. He did and he lost his seat to a woman, Carol Moseley Braun. She was in the Senate for one term, six years, and then lost to a Republican man. Clarence Thomas is still on the Supreme Court where has has only asked one question in his decades of being on the bench. Yet, he is known for being quite chatty outside of the courtroom. His wife has been very active in many right wing causes.

I was in the bookstore yesterday. I was getting the new book The Apprentice, which deals with the Russian subversion of our democracy. I also got Michael Lewis’ The Fifth Risk, which deals with the Federal workers under the Trump administration. It outlines how no one showed up from the Trump administration, or if they did they knew nothing about the job they had to do, and showed little interest or capacity to do it. I left “Football For A Buck” the story of the USFL and the prominent role Donald Trump played in it. (Trump hired Doug Flutie to play for his team, paying him a huge salary. He tried to get the other owners to pay for Flutie. This was Trump’s Wall before he had a Wall. He also threw the whole league under the bus when he told Pete Roselle that he really just wanted an NFL team. Roselle told Donald he would never get a team as long as he was commissioner. This is the real reason Trump has so much animus toward the NFL.)

While I was at the book store I also ran across Ken Starr’s book about his investigation about the Clintons and Watergate. The book claims that the Clintons played “fast and lose with the law.” Oh yeah? Boy oh boy, what would you say now about Trump or Kavanaugh? Can you imagine how many investigations the Republicans would have launched if those two were Dems? I paged to the index and looked up Kavanaugh. He’s mentioned three times. First, as the guy who wordsmithed the abuse of power allegations. Clinton had according to Starr “improperly used the powers of his office.” The second reference was Starr’s lament that he was too old to be picked for the Supreme Court in his late fifties and that it went to Brett. The third reference was to another word smithing job.

Collins in her argument for Kavanaugh said that we had to go with the presumption of innocence. that there wasn’t enough evidence to do otherwise. To which many have said, “No you don’t.” this isn’t a criminal trial. It’s a job interview. But for naive Collins the fact that Ford said she was 100% certain that Kavanaugh held her down against her will and the fact that Kavanaugh says he didn’t do it is enough.

I’m reminded of Tim Allen saying that in prison everyone in there claims to be in the joint as a mistake. Every criminal says they didn’t do it. Yet, that’s enough for Collins. This is particularly interesting because when Al Franken was accused of sexual misconduct by trumped up accusations by a woman who was trying to gain notoriety for her news show and was an associate of Roger Stone’s. Collins demanded that he resign without an investigation by the Senate. The sexual misconduct included such evidence as a poorly doctored photo of Franken being too close to a woman and her claim that he grabbed her flesh around the waist. But hey, isn’t that the same thing as a line of guys standing outside a bedroom door waiting to take their turn fucking a drunk girl?

W. Bush won the White House because the Supreme Court gave it to him. The election hung on the results in Florida, which ultimately was decided by less than 500 votes. Of course, the votes weren’t properly counted in time. When they were Gore won the state. However, there was an interesting wrinkle to that story, which I just learned the weekend before last.

The county where Fort Lauderdale is located had an election supervisor who decided to order pre-punched ballots. These are ballots that you can use a pointed object to knock the piece of paper out. That piece of paper that is knocked out is called a chad. This type of ballot is used to be sent to people overseas where they don’t have access to a voting machine. In a regular voting machine scenario you are given a piece of paper with no prepunching. When you insert the paper into the machine and press down on your choice it makes a clean cut hole, no question.
The election supervisor in Fort Lauderdale; she’s the famous one, decided to order all her ballots as the pre-punched type. Her reasoning was that her constituents were old and frail and might not be able to make a clean punch with the regular paper. By having the ballot pre-punched it would make it easier for them.
Election supervisors in Florida have little to do with the running of an election. Their job is to make sure they have ballots and machines and polling places. The actual running of any election is done by their assistants.
The problem with the prepunched ballot is that they aren’t designed to be run through a machine. When they are run trough a machine some of the chads that weren’t punched can become partially torn out; hence, a “hanging chad.” If you rerun the ballots through the machines again, the situation gets worse.
This election supervisor was told this. She was forewarned. She insisted that all her ballots be pre-punched, all 124,000. When they ran the ballots through the machines they got a margin of error. When they ran them through again, the margin of error got worse. Fort Lauderdale is heavily Jewish, heavily Democratic. By throwing out ballots as being spoiled the count was suppressed.

When W came into office he got to pick two Supreme Court justices. Now Trump is going to pick two. These presidents and these justices are out of step with the majority of people in this country. Brett Kavanaugh is rated as the most unqualified nominee ever. He had no trial experience. 2500 law professors say he is unqualified, 650 lawyers say he is unqualified, one former Supreme Court justice says he is unqualified and yet it seems he will be appointed and may serve long after most of us our dead.

He has said that what comes around goes around. He now has a list of 2500 law professors and 650 lawyers who oppose his nomination, plus the Clintons, and any progressive democrat. He, as a Supreme Court justice, does not have to recuse himself from anything.

He has shown himself to be opposed to a woman’s right to choose. He has demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of how contraception works, and he has said that pivotal cases that are now settled law were wrongly decided.

It’s going to be a tough fifty years.

The ABA is considering disbarring him. Wouldn’t that be interesting, a Supreme Court justice with little real legal experience, disbarred, deciding pivotal cases for the rest of us?